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When a 4.0 GPA Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Means · Randy Unscripted

• 0:02
  Randy Black: Randy Black.
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  Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. Randy Black. He's a troublemaker. Welcome back to Randy Unscripted. I'm Randy Black, and this is the podcast where
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  I just talk about whatever's come across my mind. And I
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  came across an article recently that that stopped me,
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  not because it said something outrageous,
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  but
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  because it said something many of us already know
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  and rarely say out loud.
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  The article was published by Fox News, and I have a link to it in the show notes, and it was written by someone who owns a tutoring company.
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  And the headline was blunt.
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  Your child's four point o GPA
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  probably isn't real.
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  Now
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  that's a provocative statement.
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  And before anyone brussels at the wording, let me say this upfront.
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  This is not an attack on students,
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  parents,
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  or teachers.
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  It's a challenge
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  to how we've come to understand grades and what we assume
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  that they mean.
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  Because
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  somewhere along the way, we started treating grades as proof of learning when reality,
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  they often tell
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  a much more complicated story.
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  The author of this piece works with students who
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  look great on paper,
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  high GPA, strong transcripts,
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  honor roll kids.
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  But when those same students sit down to do diagnostic
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  work, especially in math,
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  some of them struggle with skills they should have mastered years earlier.
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  In one example referenced, a significant number of students entering a major university
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  with perfect
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  GPAs
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  couldn't reliably handle middle school level math concepts.
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  That disconnect
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  is the heart of the issue.
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  How do you possibly earn top marks for years
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  and still have huge
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  foundational
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  gaps?
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  And maybe the better question is,
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  what are grades
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  actually
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  measuring anymore?
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  For a long time,
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  grades were supposed to reflect mastery.
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  Did you understand the material?
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  Could you apply it? Could you demonstrate it under pressure?
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  But today,
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  grades
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  often represent something else entirely.
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  They can reflect effort.
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  They can reflect behavior.
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  They they can reflect compliance.
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  They can reflect whether assignments were turned in on time or turned in at all. And I wanna be clear.
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  Effort matters.
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  Behavior
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  matters.
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  Growth
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  matters.
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  But when we collapse
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  all of that into a single letter or number and call it achievement,
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  we blur the line between learning and performance.
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  A student can play the school game very well and
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  still not truly understand the content.
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  Now this didn't happen overnight,
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  and it didn't happen because educators suddenly stopped caring about rigor.
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  There's pressure everywhere.
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  Teachers are under pressure to support student confidence.
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  Schools are under pressure to show success.
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  Districts are under pressure to produce strong outcomes.
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  Parents are under pressure to help their children get into college.
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  Students are under pressure to be perfect.
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  And in that environment,
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  grades,
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  they become emotional currency.
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  Lowering a grade doesn't just feel like academic feedback anymore.
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  It feels like a judgment,
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  a threat,
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  a setback with long term consequences.
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  So the system adapts
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  quietly,
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  gradually,
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  and suddenly
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  a four point o doesn't necessarily mean this student has mastered material.
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  It often means
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  this student successfully navigated the system.
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  Here's where this problem becomes
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  a real problem, one that slaps them in the face.
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  When students leave high school,
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  that safety net starts to disappear.
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  College professors don't grade on effort.
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  Employers,
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  they don't grade on intentions.
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  Life doesn't curve the results.
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  And when students hit that wall,
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  when the transcript doesn't match the reality,
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  it's confusing and discouraging,
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  not just academically,
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  but emotionally.
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  They were told they were excelling.
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  They believed that they were prepared,
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  and suddenly,
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  they're not.
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  That disconnect doesn't just hurt performance.
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  It hurts confidence.
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  If you're a parent listening to this, and I'm a parent, I wanna say something important.
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  Trusting your child's report card
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  doesn't make you naive.
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  Celebrating good grades
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  doesn't make you wrong.
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  Being proud of your child doesn't make you part of the problem,
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  but grades
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  should be a starting point for conversation,
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  not the end of it.
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  You need to ask questions like this.
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  What was hard?
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  What didn't make sense?
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  What would you struggle to explain to someone else?
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  Those answers matter more
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  than the number
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  on that page.
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  For educators,
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  and I was an educator too,
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  this is
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  uncomfortable territory
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  because we care deeply about our students,
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  because we see the pressures that they face,
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  because we
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  don't want to be the reason a door closes,
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  but honest feedback
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  is not cruelty.
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  Struggle
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  is not failure,
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  and rigor is not the enemy of compassion.
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  The goal isn't to protect students from difficulty,
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  it's to prepare them to face it.
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  This conversation
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  isn't really about GPAs.
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  It's about truth.
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  It's about readiness.
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  It's about whether our systems are aligned with the outcomes we say we value.
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  If grades no longer reliably communicate learning, then we shouldn't be surprised when colleges and employers stop trusting them.
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  And if we want students to succeed long term,
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  we have to be willing to be honest short term
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  even when that honesty
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  is uncomfortable.
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  A four point o GPA
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  is not meaningless,
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  but it's not the whole story.
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  And maybe the most important question we should be asking is,
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  is this grade good enough?
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  But
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  instead, we should ask,
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  what does this student actually know, and what are they still learning?
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  Because
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  real education isn't about looking successful.
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  It's about becoming capable.
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  Thank you for listening to this episode of Randy Unscripted.
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  If this made you think
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  or if it made you feel just a little bit uncomfortable,
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  that's probably a sign that it's worth thinking about some more.
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  Thank you for listening. I'd love to get your feedback on this, so head over to randallblack.com/unscripted.
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  Find the post for this episode and leave a comment there, or send me an email, Randy@RandallBlack.com,
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  and I'll be happy to take a look at it and maybe even share it here on the show.
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  So thank you for listening once again to Randy unscripted.
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  I'm Randy Black.